(Updated September 3,
2009)

My 'Writing Blog' P.3

What is, "a hackneyed
phrase"?(陈腐的短语)

A hackneyed phrase is a set expression
that has become boring to hear or read. It has become boring as a result of
overuse and sometimes, as a result of misuse.

But if one is not a native
English-speaker, and therefore does not read or hear a lot of English, how does
he or she know that an expression has become hackneyed? That's a difficult
question, which I cannot answer right now.

As for IELTS Writing test candidates,
the best way to avoid hackneyed phrases is to be very careful when memorizing
patches of English from 'model answers' of typical IELTS Writing questions. If
an expression seems to be very frequently used in model answers that are
written by Chinese English teachers, it is best to
consider whether the expression is hackneyed or not before using it.
Sometimes, it might be best to try to make your own expression for some of these commonly
used expressions in model answers.

A good example of, (what I think is) a
hackneyed phrase among IELTS Writing test candidates in China is, "Last
but not least". If I read that in an essay, I either want to scream
or I just yawn. I'm a middle-aged native English speaker from Australia who also
lived in the U.S. once for three years. In my experience, the phrase,
"Last but not least" is most often used in spoken English and is
usually used in group settings, i.e., used when talking among at least three
people. To me, the expression has a 'folksy' and 'friendly' feel about it -
obviously it must be rather informal English. A typical situation when this
expression might be used is this: I'm the manager of a department in a
company and this morning I will introduce four new employees to the other
employees. I ask the four new employees to line up in front of the whole office
staff. I begin by saying, "First, this is Mr. Wang. He's our new assistant
accountant. Then we have Miss Li, who is a new receptionist , ........and, last
but not least, we have Mr. Lin, who is our new website manager." Why did I
say, "Last but not least"? Because I didn't want Mr. Lin to feel
offended by being introduced last. (Even though it was he who chose to be at the
end of the line!)

Just write, "Last" or "Lastly" if
you can't think of another way to introduce the last item! Don't try to 'impress'
me with, "Last but not least" in an academic essay.

What style of writing should an
academic essay be? It's somewhere between normal spoken English, formal English
and scientific, analytic English. Some candidates write in an unsuitably formal
style and often this kind of candidate makes many mistakes because he or she is
writing above their natural sentence-making ability. Task
2 should not be written in the highest level of formality because, after all,
candidates are encouraged to include examples from their own experience. This
element of "writing personally" cannot be done at a high level of formality
because writing at a high level of formality is impersonal in style. Therefore, you
should not attempt to write your essay at the very highest level of formality.

On the other hand, even though the
IELTS Task 2 essay should not be highly formal, neither should it contain too many examples of expressions that are mostly used in spoken
rather than written English. I believe, "Last
but not least" is best used in spoken English situations and is not
suitable for academic essays, even academic essays such as IELTS Task 2, which
is not highly formal.

A similar hackneyed phrase is,
"First and foremost". Avoid it
in essays although it's not so bad for the Speaking test.

When I was an examiner (in the 2001-2003
period), the proverb, "Every coin
has two sides" was very much overused in essays. We examiners,
when grading the test papers together, used to mock this expression (proverb)
and say to our colleagues, "I've found another one!" and laugh. But we didn't
really think it was funny - it was rather annoying, boring and disappointing to
read such unoriginal language. What was even worse were examples of people
misquoting this proverb, such as "As a coin has two sides". Proverbs, which are
more often used in spoken language than written language, are meant to be quoted
word-for-word, exactly as they are normally spoken.

I'm not sure about this (since my Chinese
language ability is rather elementary) but I think that the use of proverbs in
Chinese writing is much more acceptable than in English. Chinese culture highly
values tradition, including the way people write. But this is much less the case
for English speakers – we highly value originality of thought and in the use of
language. We prefer to read something new and interesting rather than read
language that has been used many times before.

This leads me to another example that was
overused when I was an examiner: "With
the development of science and technology, ...". Chinese students
writing that were directly translating from Chinese. This phrase is not wrong or
bad English and there are topics where it is suitable to use. But it just became
overused and misused. For example, I used to see situations where the topic was
something such as, "Do you think students have too much homework?" and the first
sentence the essay was, "With the development of science and technology, ...".
Boring.

My general advice for avoiding hackneyed
expressions and for writing better essays overall is to read as many materials
that were written by native English speakers as you can. These materials are
articles that are similar in some ways to the essays you are asked to write
(especially Task 2), that is, articles expression your opinion, or discussing
two opposing points of view. Many students in China don't do this. The only
thing they do is study some model essays in textbooks written by Chinese English
teachers. Some of these model answers are quite good but there are others that
you should run away from as if they were SARS patients.

There are some hackneyed expressions that have
become hackneyed by overuse when written by native English speakers and you, an
IELTS candidate, will be forgiven to some extent for not knowing that these are
hackneyed for English speakers. However, there are always some expressions that
have become hackneyed in China, when used by IELTS candidates. I think these
expressions might change a little over the years as different IELTS Writing
textbooks come onto the market, resulting in some expressions becoming "popular"
to use in essays. These are the expressions that you should try to avoid.

Overall, as I have written elsewhere, you should
mostly try to communicateyour original, personal feelings and
opinions in the Task 2 essays, i.e., communicate your ideas to
another person, and try to make sure that the other person can understand what
you mean. It is a big mistake
to focus mostly on impressing the examiner with your language and
forget that you are communicating to another human being. Very manycandidates in China write in language that is much too formal and write
using language that is above their real knowledge of English, in an attempt to
impress. The end result is that the examiner does not understand what you mean
and this is the most important thing in an essay, to communicate what you mean.
So, many candidates who could get a score of 5.5 or 6.0 (for example), get a
score of 4.5 or 5.0 for Writing because of this mistake. Try to write a little
closer to the way you would speak or the way you would express your opinions or
discuss a topic in a long email (e.g., 250 words), not an essay, to an English
speaker. Yes, there are certain differences between an email and an essay but
don't focus too much or only on the points of style
of essays, especially highly formal essays.

[When I find the time, I will read many model
essays written IELTS Writing textbooks in China and form a list of hackneyed
language to avoid.]

(The word on the next
page that might not appear clearly is 'clichés'. The é is called 'the French
acute e'. Some words in English borrowed from French have kept both their French
pronunciation and spelling.)